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The bottom line is that the study concluded you would still have to purchase insurance. If you force someone to purchase health insurance then you are indeed pushing government control over the individual.

Yes we all know that bad ideas have historical roots. The fact is what Heritage proposed wasn't "conservative" either. And what Newt was pushing against Hillary care wasn't either.

The study concluded that you would still have to purchase insurance as a technical matter, if you were going to impose a universal insurance requirement. It didn't recommend it, it only stated that it would be a prerequisite of universal care. It then went on to propose the least obtrusive way of doing so, which was described in the article that I posted, but which you appear not to have read. Here it is again:

The confusion arises from the fact that 20 years ago, I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and I devised a viable alternative.

My view was shared at the time by many conservative experts, including American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholars, as well as most non-conservative analysts. Even libertarian-conservative icon Milton Friedman, in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article, advocated replacing Medicare and Medicaid "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy."

So, not only did Heritage not invent the individual mandate, but what they proposed as least likely to disrupt the economy was an idea that used Medical Savings Accounts and tax incentives to encourage purchases of insurance, rather than a mandate. The only "mandate" was the threat of loss of tax breaks which were meant to encourage insurance purchases. Again, from the article:

But the version of the health insurance mandate Heritage and I supported in the 1990s had three critical features. First, it was not primarily intended to push people to obtain protection for their own good, but to protect others. Like auto damage liability insurance required in most states, our requirement focused on "catastrophic" costs — so hospitals and taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the expensive illness or accident of someone who did not buy insurance.

Second, we sought to induce people to buy coverage primarily through the carrot of a generous health credit or voucher, financed in part by a fundamental reform of the tax treatment of health coverage, rather than by a stick.

And third, in the legislation we helped craft that ultimately became a preferred alternative to ClintonCare, the "mandate" was actually the loss of certain tax breaks for those not choosing to buy coverage, not a legal requirement.

The claim that Obamacare came from Republicans is a libel, used by Democrats to divert the blame for the most unpopular federal program since Prohibition. It's a specious, dishonest talking point, and we should not be repeating it as fact.

You keep saying this nonsense and yet you supported Obama. You threw your support at Obama. And because of people like you, Obama got 4 more years. Why you are so thick headed as not to see this boggles the mind.

C'mon, keep it on topic.

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

Are you derailing this thread again?

And while we're at it, how about you stop acting like an Obama stooge and stop repeating his party's talking points about Obamacare?

What our children are seeing right now is a resolute single minded Democrat party that stays steadfast to their goals at all costs and a Republican party whose leaders openly cry in public and change what they believe in on a whim, a threat, or even a threatening glance. What side do you think they will be joining when they can vote?

It's funny-as a liberal and a democrat, I used to complain about how disorganized the democrats were in the 80s, and how the republicans were the party with the resolution, focus and drive to get things done.

It's funny-as a liberal and a democrat, I used to complain about how disorganized the democrats were in the 80s, and how the republicans were the party with the resolution, focus and drive to get things done.

Times change, then they change back again.

Make no mistake. This is a growing period for the GOP. Make of break. Purging the party of the factions that have dominated since around 98' is no easy task. The Democratic party suffers from the fact that it's basic tenet is a fallacy. (That the Government provides social care for the masses.).

Be advised: If the GOP goes back to the way it was circa 1980..... then the Liberals will be getting all our McCain, Graham, Bill Kristol runaways. You probably don't want that, but there will be no other place for them to go unless that is so. I'm guardedly optimistic given the tone of the new evolving leadership in the GOP.

Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound - Unknown

It's funny-as a liberal and a democrat, I used to complain about how disorganized the democrats were in the 80s, and how the republicans were the party with the resolution, focus and drive to get things done.

Times change, then they change back again.

Nothing has changed really. The establishment Republicans are content with how things are now because they don't want to upset the apple cart and get disinvited from their D.C. cocktail parties.

The Boehner and McConnell types hated Reagan the same way they hate Cruz and Lee and McCaul and some others.

As for the Dems in the 80's...they were working just as they are now to undermine the Constitution and change us into a Socialist utopia. They blocked Reagan and H.W. Bush at every turn.

What is different now from 30 years ago is that they aren't afraid to hide what they are trying to do and put it right out there for everyone to see.

It's funny-as a liberal and a democrat, I used to complain about how disorganized the democrats were in the 80s, and how the republicans were the party with the resolution, focus and drive to get things done.

Times change, then they change back again.

We had Reagan. He formed a coalition of disaffected Democrats (who were turned off by the party's radicalism and incompetence), conservatives of all stripes and, once he was in charge and making great gains, Republican establishment types, but they were the hardest to deal with, because they lacked any ideological basis for their actions. The Democrats are united by a common ideological commitment to state intervention in all aspects of life, which is why radicals with wildly incompatible agendas make common cause (Examples: Unions and Environmentalists, AIDS activists and Animal Rights activists, African Americans and La Raza, Occupiers and 1%ers, Feminists and Sexual Predators, etc.,). Right now, your party is united against a common threat of individual liberty and Constitutional limits on government, but when that goes, you're going to see who the Bolsheviks and who the Mensheviks are very quickly.

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

Make no mistake. This is a growing period for the GOP. Make of break. Purging the party of the factions that have dominated since around 98' is no easy task. The Democratic party suffers from the fact that it's basic tenet is a fallacy. (That the Government provides social care for the masses.).

Be advised: If the GOP goes back to the way it was circa 1980..... then the Liberals will be getting all our McCain, Graham, Bill Kristol runaways. You probably don't want that, but there will be no other place for them to go unless that is so. I'm guardedly optimistic given the tone of the new evolving leadership in the GOP.

You've got it backwards. The Reagan coalition attracted those guys in the first place. Bill Kristol, Jeanne Kirpatrick, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Richard Perle were all Democrats who were alienated by the leftward leap of the Democratic Party, as was Reagan (who also started out as a Democrat). The unifying theme that brought them all together was a belief in American exceptionalism and a rejection of the Democratic positions of expansive domestic government and international impotence. Even McCain started out as a Reaganite, with a solid commitment to conservative ideals, but I suspect that decades in Washington's media bubble have done what the NVA couldn't do with torture, which is invert his values. Even Graham, for all of his faults, isn't likely to leave an ascendant conservative Republican Party, although he'll grumble publicly for the cameras. Graham's problem is that he likes being a senator, but doesn't know why he's there. A stronger leadership in the senate would have no trouble reigning him in, but as long as we're rudderless, he's going to go his own way. Don't think of these guys as the enemy, think of them as a weak flank that must be shored up as we go into battle.

I believe that Obama is going to have the same effect on some Democrats as Jimmy Carter had back then (not as many, of course, since the party has purged most of the people that would have rejected the current leftward tilt over the years), but some. In particular, there are a lot of dissatisfied union members who see their leadership getting rich while their jobs disappear or they lose benefits. Unions are terrified of rules that require recertification, because given a choice, most union members will opt out (look at Wisconsin for an example). Another group that we can pick off are women, specifically those who recognize that they are not men, and do not want to be men. Women with children don't want to send them to failing schools and they don't want their daughters to grow up with the same predatory liberal men that they had to fight off when they were young. We blew it big time with Bill Clinton, by not pursuing Juanita Broaddrick's rape allegations. We let the Democrats slander and dismiss her, when their own rhetoric demanded that she be believed, or at least get a fair hearing. We have to overcome the Democratic propaganda that claims that we don't value them as anything but wombs, when in fact it's the Democrats who don't value them as anything but votes and sex toys (There is a reason that the media ignored Kermit Gosnell's abattoir, but there are many more of them out there, and they must be exposed and drummed into the public mind). College students have been betrayed by an education establishment that sold them degrees in worthless fields. We need to engage them and let them know that the leftist professors have lied to them and that they have a future, but that they will have to earn it. We have a harder sell, because maturity and responsibility is harder to sell than fun and games, but it's necessary if we want to educate voters and build, not just a political party, but a nation capable of governing itself.

We won't get all of the people that I've described, but we already get 40% of union households voting Republican, and another 10% would tip the scales in many states. Republicans generally get more married women's votes than Democrats, but there are a lot more single women out there and they vote overwhelmingly Democratic because, in their heart of hearts, they want to be taken care of, if not by a man, then by the man. We have to show them that the feminist ideal of a single, childless woman looking back on a career with nothing to show for it beyond the material benefits is a sterile, ugly life. We have to reeducate men to understand that we have duties that go beyond hooking up. In short, we have to educate voters, because high information voters are our best weapon. We need to tell voters the truth, and that means countering the Democratic/Media/Government complex, which pervasively trashes conservatives and conservative values. We need to fight the common adversary, and not engage in friendly fire when we don't have to. Remember that every one of the Republicans in the house and senate who was there in 2009 voted against Obamacare. What they disagree on now is not principle, but tactics. To get them on board, we have to convince them that we have a strategic and tactical plan that will overcome the Democrats' advantages in media and discipline. Cruz's filibuster is a superb first step in making the case against Obamacare (his dissection of Dick Durban was particularly effective), but now we have to build on that. Here's how:

Strategically, we need to have Republican majorities on both houses of congress and we need a president who will sign off on repeal. Tactically, we need to build the coalition that will demand that repeal. The way to do that is not necessarily by defunding Obamacare, but by forcing it on those who demanded it in the first place. Rand Paul has the right idea in forcing the revocation of the illegal waivers that Obama has issued, and the repeal of the congressional subsidy, both of which are highly unpopular among all voters. This is a case of using the Democrats' core strength, their blatant power lust, against them, as we can highlight their hypocrisy. Even the NY Times and MSDNC would have a hard time explaining why Obamacare is good enough for their audience, but not good enough for Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or the various unions that clamored for it.

What is different now from 30 years ago is that they aren't afraid to hide what they are trying to do and put it right out there for everyone to see.

They have had another 30 years to condition the school children while we paid no attention to what they were doing, to most school kids socialism is not a bad thing. Wait until common core is done with the ones in school now, They will be zombies for the Democrat party.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyesAnd clever in their own sight! Isaiah 5:20-21 NASB

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyesAnd clever in their own sight! Isaiah 5:20-21 NASB

Make no mistake. This is a growing period for the GOP. Make of break. Purging the party of the factions that have dominated since around 98' is no easy task. The Democratic party suffers from the fact that it's basic tenet is a fallacy. (That the Government provides social care for the masses.).

Be advised: If the GOP goes back to the way it was circa 1980..... then the Liberals will be getting all our McCain, Graham, Bill Kristol runaways. You probably don't want that, but there will be no other place for them to go unless that is so. I'm guardedly optimistic given the tone of the new evolving leadership in the GOP.

I think you are mistaken. The Tea Party wing, while enjoying a great deal of power over the Speaker and the House at the moment, does not have broad enough support to capture the reigns of the Republican Party completely (let alone the nation). They are a regional party on their own and can be successful in a few of the Mountain states along with the core of the old CSA. I can see where they maintain their grasp of the House but do not see where they can take the Senate (Republicans will probably take the Senate in 2015 but that will be short lived and Susan Collins will tell Cruz to pound sand, regardless).

I don't think we are in Whig territory for the party but I would not be surprised if this reaches the Dixiecrat stage for the Republicans.

I think you are mistaken. The Tea Party wing, while enjoying a great deal of power over the Speaker and the House at the moment, does not have broad enough support to capture the reigns of the Republican Party completely (let alone the nation). They are a regional party on their own and can be successful in a few of the Mountain states along with the core of the old CSA. I can see where they maintain their grasp of the House but do not see where they can take the Senate (Republicans will probably take the Senate in 2015 but that will be short lived and Susan Collins will tell Cruz to pound sand, regardless).

I don't think we are in Whig territory for the party but I would not be surprised if this reaches the Dixiecrat stage for the Republicans.

Go to a local GOP meeting and you will get a far different picture.

Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound - Unknown

True. So what you do is give the school staff the power to stop whatever happens. If it's verbal teasing, you give them the power to tell the kids to stop it. If it's rock throwing, you give them the...